Buffy and Angel Rewatch part 23

B4.15 This Year's Girl
Great episode. The return of Faith is always enjoyable to watch, as she's such a chaotic, yet likeable character. Most of the episode is focused on her; with the Riley storyline left over from the previous episode, being wrapped up very quickly. The sense of loneliness and anger Faith felt is well portrayed here and whilst its hard to feel the terror the Scoobies do about her waking up, its clear that she's going to cause trouble.
The idea of switching bodies with Buffy is just genius, it allows the character so much more scope to cause trouble and I love the way in which its revealed to the audience at the end of this episode. There were two other major returns in this episode; first Mayor Wilkins, who is was just a joy to see in the sweet father role to Faith in her dreams and in the video which I just adore. The second was Joyce and the Summers house in general neither of which has been seen since early season 4. It was startling to see the house in Faith's dreams at the beginning of the episode as it has been so long since we've seen it. The writers made good use of returning to the homestead by having the two Slayers tear it up as well. I liked seeing Joyce as well, who has been necessarily considering the transition but missed from the show. (10/10)

B4.16 Who Are You?
This episode is a terrific end to the Faith two parter on Buffy. It was a well plotted episode, with 'Faith' interacting with all the main characters (apart from maybe Xander that much) and causing maximum chaos, which was a whole lot of fun! What did strike me was that this episode really underused Eliza Dushku; with Sarah Michelle Gellar getting the best material to work with and the most air time on the show. Mostly this worked as a strategy, since she pulled off the character of Faith brilliantly, making it easy to believe that Faith was in Buffy's body. Dushku didn't so quite as well being Buffy, but she was still convincing in the few scenes she had.
The Adam storyline felt out of place in the episode though it did provide the church setting for the showdown between Buffy and Faith, so in a way in worked well. Overall though, this was an excellent two parter and a reminder of the show's quality. (10/10)

A1.15 The Prodigal
I enjoyed this episode more this time around but that isn't really saying much, since I'm not a fan of this episode. Daddy issues were on the agenda again this season, revealing that Kate's dad was into some shady business. This half of the storyline was mostly boring and definitely filler. There wasn't even much Angel Investigation stuff to enjoy. The flashbacks of just before and after Angel was sired were a lot more interesting; we've always were heard that Angel ate his family and now we get to see that. The actual siring was thankfully glossed over a little as it was just the scene lifted from Buffy's season 2 finale. It was good to see Julie Benz on the show as Darla but it was one of the few highlights of this episode. (5.5/10)

A1.16 The Ring
A fairly okay story of the week episode. I liked that Angel was tricked into going to the demon fighting place as it shows that he is not all knowing and does make mistakes. The general storyline in which Angel was trying not to kill the other demons and ended up setting them free, was an interesting one as it showed the blurred lines of Angel that sometimes he will fight for demons and not just humans. Whether they did the right thing or not was one thing, but in terms of the black and white morality lines it shows that this show is definitely different to Buffy.
Also there was a good introduction to Lilah; I like the encounters with Wolfram and Hart this season even if they are sporadic. (6.5/10)